Just saw this last night. You can skip to 35:30 to get to the meat of the movie.

Synopsis (Just watched it once so this is as I remember it)...

- Doctor develops drug to treat cancer.
- The FDA pressures the Texas Medical board to go after him.
- Numerous times courts declare he is in compliance with the law.
- FDA pursues him for 20 years. Each time claiming the effectiveness of the drug is not an issue. And repeatedly preventing the effectiveness barred from the Jury.
- National Cancer Institute (NCI) performs trials intentionally mistreating patients and reports trial was a failure.
- NCI then pursues and obtains Govt owned patents for the same drugs.
- Michael A. Friedman, who was responsible for mistreating patients at the NCI later becomes the FDA Lead Deputy Commissioner.
- FDA attempts to imprison Dr even while allowing him to perform trials on the drug. Jurists who acquitted Dr attend protests in DC to protest acts of the FDA.

Other interesting info about the FDA comes out in the movie related to how the major pharmaceutical companies essentially have the FDA on their payroll. Maybe there is another side to this movie. And I'd sure like to hear it. But it's pretty damning.

Paul, I did see Food Inc. I can't understand the idea of being able to patent "life". Apparently the govt people that allowed that to happen have never heard of environmental protections against importing foreign species of animals and plants. If they did then they would know that cross pollination is going to occur and no one will be able to prevent unpatented plants from being infected with patented genes.

CASINO JACK and the United States of Money (the documentary not the movie with Kevin Spacey) was a good one too. Really exposes the corruption that goes on when politicians cater to whoever funds their campaigns.

The only solution to this is to get the government out of our lives. We need a minimal Constitutional government and a return to free market principles. Government involvement in healthcare and the medical field should be none at all. We'd all benefit from lower prices, better service, and faster advancement of new treatments.

Unfortunately they are using the oversight to their advantage. They essentially have made any discoveries in healthcare limited to the deep pocket club. There is simply no way that any cure can come from anywhere unless it's patentable and and belongs to a large company.

Our healthcare industry operates on the paradigm that unless it's "scientifically" proven it's quackery. That to me suggests that everything has been scientifically proven and there are no more discoveries to be made. The govt has no business telling the American people that they are not allowed to have something they believe is beneficial to their health.

The FDA should be limited to providing information regarding the "official" position on claims of effectiveness, monitoring basic sanitary manufacturing, and truth in labeling of contents. Not telling people that something is dangerous or infective, and not allowing access. The FDA has no scientific basis for claiming that things not researched don't work. It's the right of every America to explore alternatives to the treatment of their own health.

The FDA has proven that canibas is a medically viable option yet it is still illegal because pharmacutical companies have not found a way to profit from it yet. As soon as they do I am sure you will see the DEA take it off it's class 1 chart.